


she was the universe

by freefallvertigo



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Allusion to Bill Potts, Angst, Confessions of love, F/F, Post-Episode: s12e08 The Haunting of Villa Diodati
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22780810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freefallvertigo/pseuds/freefallvertigo
Summary: Yaz has one final, sincere conversation with the Doctor before they embark on their most dangerous endeavour to date.Post 12x08.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 23
Kudos: 215





	she was the universe

_'There was always scope for fear, so long as anything I loved remained behind.'_

\- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

* * *

Yaz dreamed of a mirror that wasn't a mirror.

Yaz dreamed she gazed upon her reflection, unmarred by the deathly still lake. Those were her eyes; eyes don't change. Nothing else familiar remained. Rotten skin fused with metal, blackened teeth aged like a corpse's, and something else too horrific to bear - apathy.

Yaz dreamed she was a monster alone. 

She dreamed but it wasn't a dream; it was a nightmare. The kind that sticks. The kind that haunts. The kind you wake from with fingernail marks imprinted onto your palms and a cold sweat that at the very least tells you you're alive. Yaz sat up, legs swinging over the side of the bed and shaking hands gripping the mattress. She caught her reflection in the vanity across the room. 

Definitely still human. That was a relief. One which didn't last particularly long when Yaz remembered with a bout of nausea that which had so grimly inspired her subconscious.

Even though she couldn't have been asleep for more than a few hours, she dreaded to close her eyes again after that. Instead, she went off in search of the one person she could pretty much count on to still be awake. The only person, really, she actually wanted to see at present.

As soon as she vacated her room and stepped out into the hallway, the temperature plummeted by several degrees. Tugging the sleeves of her hoodie down over her hands, Yaz followed the dim blue overhead lights all the way to the console room. Half expecting to find the Doctor occupied with one in a never ending succession of repairs, Yaz was surprised to instead find the room empty and the door ajar.

A dim, grey sliver of light nestled its way in through the crack. Yaz approached the door; pulled it open. Instantly, a blinding overcast sky impaired Yaz's vision. By the time she'd stepped fully out of the TARDIS, her eyes began to adjust.

They'd landed on a beach. It was cold, wintry. To her left, a rocky cliff face, and underfoot, damp bleached sand that didn't appear to ever have been graced by the golden light of the sun. Even the water looked black. All the world desaturated. 

Save, of course, for the Doctor.

She was perched on a rock up ahead, watching the ocean in perfect quietude. Her blonde hair, tousled by the glacial fingers of a brisk wind, was the only indicator that colour did indeed exist and was not merely the product of another vivid dream. Hugging herself tightly, and regretting her decision not to bring a jacket, Yaz headed for the Doctor.

"It's freezing out here," she remarked when she was all but upon her.

The Doctor started. Yaz couldn't help but think that she looked caught out and began to wonder exactly what train of thought she'd just brought to a screeching halt. "Yaz? What y'doing up so soon?"

Yaz shrugged. "Just a bad dream. Do you mind?" She nodded towards the empty space beside the Doctor.

"No, no, 'course not. Have a seat. Bit cold, mind you." The Doctor shifted to allow Yaz more room to settle comfortably beside her. "What was your dream about?"

"Oh, nothing. I mean, I don't really remember," lied Yaz. The Doctor had enough on her plate as it was without needlessly worrying about Yaz and her trifling dreams. "Where are we, anyway?"

"We’re in Norway," said the Doctor. She fixed her eyes on the water; on the colossal, inky waves breaking against the shore in the near distance. "I come here sometimes. To think."

As they sat and observed the ocean, she who that dull morning was brutal and unforgiving and thrashing as if in agony, Yaz's mind drifted. It didn't drift far. As a matter of fact, it wandered only the few short inches that separated she and the Doctor. But then it latched and refused to let go.

Yaz beheld the chaos of two waves colliding and thought of the Doctor; thought of how severely she had dismantled the fabrication of the flat team structure the night prior. It's not that Yaz had been afraid of the Doctor, but without question she had revealed a part of herself to them that had long since been cloaked beneath a coverlet of rainbows and lighthearted banter. Yaz always knew that there was more to her. Only, she hadn't known what she'd been wishing for when she'd asked to see more.

_'I will not lose anyone else to that!'_

The words hadn't invited discussion at the time. Yaz hadn't even been able to formulate a response amidst all her shock; amidst all the guilt the Doctor was so deliberately inspiring. But now she couldn't help but stew on them. They made the cold seem crueller and the sky infinitely greyer.

"D'you want to talk about it?" Yaz gathered enough courage to finally ask. 

"About what?" 

"About who you lost," clarified Yaz softly. "To the Cybermen."

A long pause followed. Yaz glanced furtively at the Doctor but her focus had not strayed from the horizon; only her tense shoulders suggested she had even heard Yaz. So endless a silence stretched between them that Yaz forgot to expect an answer at all. Until one came.

"She waited for me." The Doctor whispered her confession at the exact same moment as another feral wave broke against the cliff. Yaz almost missed it. Probably that had been intentional.

So she said nothing. Yaz allowed the Doctor her private admission; allowed her the notion that her awful truth had been claimed by the ocean and the wind. The elements would cradle her secret in the lightless depths; would scream it into deaf ears from the blustery eye of a storm. Yaz would let it go.

For the Doctor's sake.

She felt the Doctor's eyes on her but did not turn to meet them. Rather, she continued to look unflinchingly ahead, allowing the Doctor to observe her. It was not the first time she had allowed the Doctor such a stolen glance. It was only fair to grant her these moments given that the Doctor allowed her the very same luxury from time to time.

"I didn't mean to explode at you lot before," the Doctor said after an age. "The things I said - it wasn't your fault. I shouldn't have yelled at you."

' _You want to sacrifice yourself for this? You want_ me _to sacrifice you?_ '' Yaz shivered when she recalled the intensity with which the Doctor had looked at her. At all of them. ' _Sometimes this team structure isn't flat. It's mountainous, with me at the summit. In the stratosphere. Alone. Left to choose.'_

So easy sometimes to forget who they were really travelling with. So easy until she discarded all pretence of the happy-go-lucky bleeding heart for the maddeningly ancient, time weary alien she really was. Yaz had only glimpsed the latter on a few occasions but even the knowledge that that person was always lying in wait beneath the flimsy mask she opted to adorn was enough to afflict her with such torment. The Doctor wasn't okay, under there. She really wasn't. And so neither was Yaz.

"I get it," Yaz sympathised. "You were angry. You were upset."

"No, Yaz," sighed the Doctor. "I was terrified."

"Of the Cyberman?"

"Of you lot."

Yaz frowned at the Doctor, who was looking at her as if she weren't really there. As if she were a memory, something vague and intangible. "Why would you be scared of us?"

"You're changing, all of you," the Doctor explained sadly. "Because of me, you're changing. What Ryan said earlier-"

"He didn't mean it that way," argued Yaz.

"Doesn't matter, Yaz. We both know full well that when he first met me, he'd never dare to think like that. Like a soldier. A strategist. Ryan's kind and selfless and he's not supposed to be all right with weighing up the value of one life against others."

Yaz wanted to fight her on this but nothing the Doctor said was false. She'd have been lying to say his stance hadn't surprised her as well, but she didn't think he was really thinking it through at the time. Fear bred the thought; panic pushed him to voice it aloud. Ryan wouldn't have let Shelley die. Yaz was sure of it. 

"Graham's changing, too," the Doctor pressed on. "He's better at hiding it, maybe, but I look at him and he's petrified. _Haunted_." 

The way the Doctor said that last word, like it was a piece of a puzzle she was still attempting to figure out the truth of, perturbed Yaz more than she cared to admit. "If Graham's so haunted, why would he choose to stay? You gave us all the same option to leave."

"C'mon, Yaz, y'know he'd never leave Ryan. That, and I get the sense maybe he's a little bit like me." The Doctor pushed herself up off the rock and onto the sand below. She kept her back to Yaz and slipped her hands into her pockets. "He doesn't wanna be alone."

"You're not alone, Doctor." Yaz stood. Tender, she brought her hand to rest on the Doctor's shoulder. "You're not."

The Doctor turned suddenly; Yaz reclaimed her hand as if burnt when the Doctor's turbulent eyes found her own and sliced clean through Yaz's good intentions like a scalpel through living flesh. "Then there's you," said the Doctor. The words landed heavy in the sand between them like a stone.

"What about me?" Yaz asked quietly. 

"You're changing, too."

"I'm not changing," Yaz refuted, taking a step forward. "I feel the same."

"No, you don't," denied the Doctor. She said it like it broke her heart to admit it out loud. "You've always been brave but now you're reckless. You take risks that scare me to death and put your life on the line for others - for _me_ \- without thinking about what that really means."

Yaz went still. "I know what it means," she muttered. "Believe me."

It had taken a long time for Yaz to realise the worth of her life. Now, she knew exactly what it was worth; it was worth the Doctor.

As far as she was concerned, her life held value so long as the Doctor held it in her hands. To say as much would have scared the Doctor senseless, but how could Yaz help what she felt? She couldn't help that the Doctor had saved her life and that now Yaz would eternally feel so indebted as to loan the Doctor her future and her faith and her entire patchwork heart - beating or otherwise.

The Doctor pursed her lips. "I'm lookin' at you, Yaz, and all I'm seeing are ghosts. People I should have saved. People I should have let go."

"What do you mean, let go?" demanded Yaz. "You don't want me here?"

"The problem is that I _do_ want y'here. I want you here for the most selfish reasons in the universe and you're only gonna wind up hurt because of me." The Doctor gestured helplessly at Yaz. "That's how these things go. Always. And the worst part is that even knowing this, I'm still not asking you to leave."

Yaz's goosebumps were not a product of the weather. "So why aren't you? Why aren't you asking me to leave?"

The Doctor's shoulders slumped. "You know."

A howling wind whipped Yaz's hair into her face. The sand shifted beneath her feet. ' _His answers only increase the enigma...' 'I know someone like that..._ ' Not this time. 

"I want you to say it."

"Why?" the Doctor shook her head. She looked so tired. The Doctor never looked tired. "What does it matter if I say it or not?"

"Wasn't it you who just got done telling us all that words matter? And you owe me these words," Yaz pushed, unfazed by her own desperation. It would have been useless to try and hide it anyway. "After everything you've kept from us; the extremes you've gone to just to keep us at arm's length. You owe me this much, Doctor."

Heavily, the Doctor regarded Yaz. Yaz, in sweats and a hoodie, catching her death on a frosty beach in Norway, pleading for nought more than one truth. Just one. Did she not deserve that much at least?

Face set with doubt and something a little softer, the Doctor closed the gap between them. She picked Yaz's cold hands up in hers, closed her eyes, and touched her own forehead gently to Yaz's. Yaz did not understand, at first, the Doctor's intentions. But then she felt something - a presence in the forefront of her mind. Something warm and familiar and boundless _._ The Doctor's voice was everywhere all at once and the words so clear it was as if she'd spoken them into her ear instead of her head.

_I love you_.

Yaz's lips parted. "Did you just..."

The Doctor pulled back but did not untangle her hands from Yaz's. "Please don't make me say it out loud. Not yet. Not until all this is over."

Yaz looked at the Doctor and saw apprehension. She knew then that if she _had_ asked the Doctor to say it, she would have. It would have killed her, but she'd have said it if it was what Yaz needed to hear. Yaz wouldn't dream of doing that to her.

She understood, now, her unwillingness to say it. When morning came, they were to embark on their most dangerous endeavour yet. It made sense that the Doctor - so plagued already by pure, black grief - was hesitant to again give her all to somebody only to lose them the second she did. 

But just because the Doctor wouldn't say it, that didn't mean Yaz couldn't. 

"I love you, Doctor," Yaz said, firm enough that she didn't risk the wind or the sea stealing the confession from her lungs.

The Doctor closed her eyes as if Yaz's words had hurt. As if her love hurt. "I know," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry I love you?"

"Yes. I'll never be more sorry about anything."

Yaz felt her heart splinter. "Loving you isn't a burden."

Untwining one of her hands from Yaz's, the Doctor brought it up to rest delicately on her cheek. Her thumb brushed, light as a breeze, over Yaz's lower lip. She looked at Yaz like the only thing in the world she wanted to do was kiss her, and yet somehow Yaz knew she wouldn't. 

Sure enough, the Doctor's hand fell away.

"That'll change," she promised.

Yaz opened her mouth but only thunder broke. Her eyes flitted towards the storm on the horizon. Black clouds marched over the raging sea, a pall mirrored by the dark tempest accumulating deep in the chamber of Yaz's heart. The Doctor stepped away. Hands slid apart, and once the skin of their fingertips unjoined for good, Yaz felt an aching tsunami of untempered _want_ swell enormously. It threatened total devastation. 

"We should get inside," the Doctor remarked. "Don't wanna get caught up in that, do we?"

_"_ Wait! _"_ Yaz reached for her but something stopped her from breaching the last few millimetres (an entire universe) still separating them. The Doctor watched Yaz's hand fall meekly to her side. "We'll talk about this again, right? This won't be one of those things you just pretend never happened?"

The Doctor afforded Yaz a lamenting smile. "If we make it through this, and if you still want to talk, I'll be waiting. But Yaz-" The Doctor stopped.

She looked at Yaz then as if to say: we might not make it through this.

As if to say: something awful is coming, don't you feel it?

As if to say: please don't hope too hard.

Instead, she only swept her sad eyes over their bleak surroundings one last time. When she looked at Yaz again, all those sentiments had been banished. Once more, the Doctor was inscrutable. The moment had passed. Stone by stone, that ancient fortress grew between them, and Yaz regretted not touching the Doctor one last time while she'd had the chance. 

"Never mind.” The Doctor smoothed her features; ironed out any treacherous creases alluding to real fear. She nodded towards the TARDIS. "Let's get you warmed up."

A foreign concept if ever there was one. Even when a sullen Yaz followed the Doctor out of the cold and into the TARDIS, the chill that had since made a home of her bones lingered for a long while afterwards. Like a sickness. Like a ghost. 

Like some harrowing premonition. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr: freefallthirteen


End file.
